Durban - Universal Print Group, one of the country's top three print companies, had acquired all the assets of Everton Print and some of the assets of Davbar, Harish Mehta, the group's managing director, said yesterday.
For the past 30 years, Everton Print has been the sole supplier of external promotional material to Coca-Cola in South Africa.
Mehta said the replacement cost of Everton, if it had not been bought through liquidation, would have been R25 million.
The company got into financial difficulties following some poor management decisions.
"Universal will acquire Everton's highly sophisticated, fully automatic five-colour press with UV varnishing, which can print on any surface," Mehta said.
Davbar, which specialises in the value-added carton market, would enable Universal to make its debut on the short-to-medium run, value-added carton market.
It would mainly service the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.
The acquisitions would boost Universal's R500 million annual turnover by about 8 percent by thrusting it to the forefront of the large format signage and point-of-sale industry.
Yatish Mehta, the managing director of the point-of-sale unit, said the acquisitions would also position the group to fulfil its vision of becoming the dominant print communication provider for the mass market.
"It also enhances the group's ability to provide a total print solution to niche markets and increases our value basket to the customer and the mass marketer," he said.
Universal's customers include SAB, Telkom Directory Services, Unilever, the JD Group and Joshua Doore.
Mehta said exports to central and southern Africa accounted for 15 percent of production.